THE
MONEY ISSUE MAY BE THE ESTABLISHMENT'S ACHILLES' HEEL IN ITS WAR ON
"ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM"PART 5 of 7

Dr.
Edwin Vieira, Jr., Ph.D., J.D.
January 11, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

PART
FOUR of this commentary warned that the Islamic world could precipitate
a monetary and banking crisis in the West by reintroducing gold and
silver coin as the media of exchange among Muslims. Continuing that
analysis...

e.
Even were circumstances propitious for the use of both silver and
gold as media of exchange, would not Muslims, no less than Americans,
suffer from the same disincentives against employment of specie coins
in everyday transactions? No. Indeed, quite the opposite--because
at least two "large players" exist for catalyzing the transition throughout
Dar al-Islam from fiat currency to silver and gold coin
(or electronic variants thereof).

(1)
The first "large player" could be the Islamic oil reserve, on access
to which the continued economic functioning, let alone prosperity,
of the West depends. If major Islamic oil-producing nations began
to demand payment for their oil in gold and silver (specie), rather
than some fiat currency such as Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs), Western
countries would have no choice (short of invasion of those nations
and expropriation of their oil) but to pay in specie. To obtain that
specie, they would have two choices: (i) to exchange their own products
for specie, to that extent returning directly to a "specie standard"
and demonetizing FRNs in their own economies; or (ii) to remain strictly
on the FRN standard and exchange FRNs for specie as needed. If they
exchanged FRNs for specie, however, the value of specie as against
FRNs would rise, because (all other things remaining equal) if the
supply of specie remains constant, but the demand for it increases,
the "price" of specie in the medium of exchange used to purchase it
must go up. Eventually--and most probably quite soon--parties that
found themselves constantly exchanging the FRNs they received in other
economic transactions for the specie necessary to purchase oil would
start demanding to be paid in specie in those other transactions,
so as to eliminate the cost of exchanging FRNs for specie. This would
depreciate the value of FRNs even more. Gradually, this process could
drive the entire economic systems in those countries dependent upon
Islamic oil in the direction of a new "specie standard."

This
scenario depends, however, upon operation "from the top down:" that
is, the leaders of various Islamic oil-producing nations must
decide to demand specie for their oil. These leaders form very small
parts of Islamic society. Some of them are the Western Establishment’s
clients, collaborators, or quislings. Others are susceptible to bribery,
blackmail, or the ever-present threat of being Saddamized with "regime
change." Few would be likely to risk the loss of their own power,
prestige, and perquisites for the speculative general welfare of common
Muslims.

(2)
The second "large player" could be Islam--the religion--itself. This
scenario is more likely, because its operation comes "from the bottom
up:" that is, through the great mass of Muslims themselves--who, to
a very significant degree, have nothing to lose and everything to
gain.

The
generally acknowledged "five pillars" of Islam include:

bearing
witness that there is no God but Allah, and that Muhammad is His
Prophet;

The
tithe is mentioned along with daily prayers over seventy times in
the Qur'an. A commonplace analogy is that, just as prayer is
an act of worship Muslims perform with bodily actions, the tithe is
an act of worship Muslims perform through economic transactions. It
is religiously obligatory charity, amounting to 2-1/2% of a Muslim's
wealth above a certain exemption, that the faithful must pay year
around, in money or in goods, directly to the poor or to some charitable
agency. Those who fulfill this duty are promised rewards in the world
to come; those who evade it are threatened with eternal punishment.
Most importantly in the context of this Commentary, Islamic law holds
that: (i) mere debt cannot function as money; and therefore (ii) the
tithe, if paid in money, must be paid in silver or gold. So typical
Western fiat currencies, which are all nothing but debts politically
privileged to circulate as currency, cannot be used to pay the tithe.

Little
insight is necessary to realize why a religious-cum-political movement
that restored the Islamic tithe in the full strictness of Islamic
law could be the motivation and the catalyst for reintroduction of
gold and silver coin (the dinar and dirham) as common
media of exchange throughout the Muslim world:

The
tithe is religiously required of all Muslims.

If
paid in money, it must be paid in silver or gold.

It
must be paid regularly (at least yearly) as proceeds are earned.

Because
the tithe must be paid in silver and gold, and regularly, Muslims
would soon require that silver and gold coin also be received
in the underlying transactions on which the tithe is assessed.
For Muslims would not want to incur the added expense of resorting
to specie brokers to make the necessary exchange from fiat paper
currency to precious metals. Moreover, the tithe not only would
be paid in by the productive, but also would be paid out to the
needy, who would then themselves immediately spend it back into
the Islamic economy, completing the cycle of circulation. So the
Muslim world would increasingly, and perhaps soon exclusively,
operate with silver and gold coin as its common media of exchange
in day-to-day transactions (that is, on the basis of what Americans
know as "gold-clause contracts").

Use
of specie throughout Islam would

stimulate
productive economic activity;

promote
the elimination of usury (which is inherent in modern fractional-reserve
banking and fiat currencies);

reduce,
and perhaps eliminate, the circulation of Western fiat paper currencies
in Dar al-Islam, thereby curtailing the economic power
and influence of the Western central banks that emit them;

strike
a blow at Western economic imperialism--which operates through
and in conjunction with politically privileged fractional-reserve
banks--and therefore at Western political and cultural imperialism,
too.

In
this process, the religious aspect would be the central, compulsive,
driving, and rewarding force. Muslims would turn to gold and silver
coin, not simply in spite of any attendant economic costs, but even
because those costs would become part and proof of their sacrifice
and service to Allah. Thus, "Islamic fundamentalism" would overcome
economic transaction costs. Faith would prevail over the materialistic
scramble for profit. Spiritual man would prove superior to economic
man. And the increasing benefits from the expansion of the use of
silver and gold coin as media of exchange would provide religious,
as well as economic, confirmation of the wisdom of this course: Allah
blesses those who obey Him. Not only in Dar al-Islam proper, either,
but also in non-Islamic countries where Muslims constitute sizeable
segments of the populations.

f.
Into this process would doubtlessly intrude, sooner rather than later,
what most scholars recognize as, if not the sixth pillar of Islam,
at least tangential to all five: jihad.

(1)
In Arabic, jihad means simply to strive or to struggle. Specifically
in Islam, jihad imports dedication of a believer's total resources
and application of his utmost efforts to the promotion of Islam and
against its enemies. This effort ranges from the believer's inward,
personal, perhaps invisible jihad to perfect his own faith,
to his outward, overt, and collective participation in various worldly
jihads to defend, advance, and even expand Islam across a hostile
globe.

Today,
"the inner jihad" increasingly merges with "the outer jihad," because
Muslims quite rightly understand Western political, economic, cultural,
and especially military incursions into the Islamic world as designed
to defame, subvert, corrupt, and ultimately destroy "Islamic fundamentalism"--that
is, true Islam--and to replace it with pseudo-religious modernism,
then indifferentism, and then the apostasy and even atheism that rampant
materialism and hedonistic consumerism depend upon and foster. So,
whatever Muslims can, in justice, do in self-defense to deter, resist,
and defeat such subversives, aggressors, and oppressors, and preserve
their freedom to live in their own lands according to the tenets of
Islam, they can hardly be faulted for wanting, and trying, to do.

(2)
Besides, to Muslims the use of silver and gold as means of self-defense
in a jihad against Western imperialism and neo-colonialism
would satisfy the fundamental criteria of a just war. First, in Muslims'
eyes the struggle is both unavoidable and purely defensive. They see
the West as having launched political, economic, cultural, and military
aggression against Dar al-Islam, and as promising more of the
same, if not worse, in the misnamed but perpetual "war on terror."
(In principle, this war will never end while a single Western soldier
sets his foot on Muslim ground.)

Second,
Muslims can expect to win the monetary battle--because, in any fair
competition, silver and gold will inevitably triumph over fiat
paper currencies and bank credit.

Third,
an Islamic victory would not entail Muslims' conquest, oppression,
or exploitation of the West, but instead the economic and then political
and cultural liberation of Western peoples from their own domestic
deceivers, exploiters, and oppressors. The economic freedom that silver
and gold provide would encourage, enable, and empower Western peoples
themselves to overthrow the corrupt and corrupting regimes that propagandize,
plunder, and persecute them. So, rather than dividing Muslim from
Western peoples, this jihad would forge a new solidarity amongst
them all.

Fourth,
Muslims would wage this jihad not merely for their own personal gain,
but also on behalf of universal principles of truth and justice, for
the benefit of all humanity. Their truth would prove to be everyone's
truth, because the laws of economics apply universally.

Thus,
on any theory, Muslims could, and probably will, embrace the use of
silver and gold as fully justifiable means of "outer jihad."
At base, too, such use does not depend even upon Muslims' invoking
the right of self-defense against alien aggressors, because it is
required in any event by the Islamic pillar of zakat: that
is, it is already part and parcel of every believer's "inner jihad."

(3)
True, Muslims' adoption of silver and gold as their exclusive media
of exchange would have profound economic, and then political, effects
on the West--all of them negative from the Establishment's point of
view. But if the West's monetary and banking systems did suffer crises,
or even collapsed, it would be the Establishment's own fault for foisting
such inherently flawed and dishonest schemes on the people, and the
people's own fault for allowing themselves to be so misled and misused--and,
if the truth be told, set up for the fall.

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Crises
in and the collapse of the West's monetary and banking systems might
ultimately be all to the good of everyone concerned, however, not
only because they would impede the Western Establishment's incursions
into Dar al-Islam (and thereby reduce the threat of endless
world war), but also because they might inspire Western peoples to
take back control of their own countries.

Edwin Vieira, Jr., holds four degrees from Harvard:
A.B. (Harvard College), A.M. and Ph.D. (Harvard Graduate School of Arts
and Sciences), and J.D. (Harvard Law School).

For more than thirty years he has
practiced law, with emphasis on constitutional issues. In the Supreme
Court of the United States he successfully argued or briefed the cases
leading to the landmark decisions Abood v. Detroit Board of Education,
Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, and Communications Workers of America
v. Beck, which established constitutional and statutory limitations on
the uses to which labor unions, in both the private and the public sectors,
may apply fees extracted from nonunion workers as a condition of their
employment.

He has written numerous monographs
and articles in scholarly journals, and lectured throughout the county.
His most recent work on money and banking is the two-volume Pieces
of Eight: The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States
Constitution (2002), the most comprehensive study in existence of American
monetary law and history viewed from a constitutional perspective. www.piecesofeight.us

He is also the co-author (under
a nom de plume) of the political novel CRA$HMAKER:
A Federal Affaire (2000), a not-so-fictional story of an engineered crash
of the Federal Reserve System, and the political upheaval it causes. www.crashmaker.com

True,
Muslims' adoption of silver and gold as their exclusive media of exchange
would have profound economic, and then political, effects on the West--all
of them negative from the Establishment's point of view.